EF2 tornado, Meridan to Fowlerville, Michigan, August 24, 2023

1. EF065 to 85 mph

   Light damage. Surface peeled off some roofs, gutters and siding damaged, branches broken, shallow-rooted trees pushed over.

2. EF186 to 110 mph

   Moderate damage. Roofs badly stripped, mobile homes overturned or badly damaged, exterior doors lost, windows broken.

3. EF2111 to 135 mphthis tornado

   Considerable damage. Roofs torn off well-built houses, frame homes shifted on their foundations, mobile homes destroyed, large trees snapped or uprooted, cars lifted off the ground.

4. EF3136 to 165 mph

   Severe damage. Whole stories of well-built houses destroyed, large buildings badly damaged, trains overturned, trees debarked, heavy cars lifted and thrown.

5. EF4166 to 200 mph

   Devastating damage. Well-built houses leveled, structures with weak foundations moved some distance, cars thrown and large missiles generated.

6. EF5over 200 mph

   Incredible damage. Strong frame houses swept off their foundations, car-sized missiles thrown more than 100 meters, steel-reinforced concrete badly damaged, high-rise buildings deformed.

7. Unrated

   The survey recorded a tornado but could not put a number on it, most often because it crossed open country and damaged nothing a rating can be read from.

Rating

EF2

Date

August 24, 2023

Touchdown

9:29 PM EDT (01:29 UTC)

Lifted

9:42 PM EDT (01:42 UTC)

On the ground

13 minutes

Path length

12.0 miles (19.3 km)

Path width

500 yards (457 m)

Deaths

2

Injuries

4

Property damage

$75 million

Counties

Ingham and Livingston counties

Touchdown point

42.654, -84.313

Lift-off point

42.646, -84.122

Record number

2308241929-01

38 damage points were recorded along this path by NWS DTX and NWS GRR, in the Damage Assessment Toolkit the survey teams carry. The strongest indicator was rated EF2. The highest wind the damage implies is 125 mph.

• 3 outbuildings heavily damaged. Primary home some roofing damage
• Trees snapped and loss of roofing material.
• Hundreds of trees snapped. Numerous vehicles travelling westbound on I-96 tossed/moved.
• Trees on south side of I-96 Snapped or uprooted

Survey points are preliminary and are the raw material the published rating was built from. Source: NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.

Severe storms developed during the evening hours in an extremely unstable environment. Two tornadoes occurred. The first tornado touched down in west central Kent County from Alpine Township to Plainfield Township and was rated an EF-1. The second tornado touched down in eastern Ingham County from Williamston to Webberville, before continuing on into Livingston County, and was rated an EF-2 in Ingham County before weakening to an EF-1 in Livingston County. The thunderstorms produced numerous areas of 60 to 75 mph wind gusts and vivid lightning. The combination of the tornadoes, strong wind gusts, and continuous lightning resulted in power outages to 460,000 customers statewide.

Thunderstorms producing torrential rainfall led to flooding in the Detroit metro area early Thursday morning (August 24th). Western Wayne county into Monroe county was hardest hit resulting in widespread residential flooding, road closures, and stranded vehicles. Most notable was the closure of Dingell Drive at Detroit Metro Airport which cut off access to the McNamara terminal for several hours. A lengthy closure of I-94 at I-275 was also reported. Numerous rainfall totals in the 3 to 5 inch range were reported mostly in the 6 hour period from midnight to 6 AM. The highest total was 7.36 inches from a CoCoRaHS station in Belleville, a 24 hour total nearly all of which fell during this event.||A second round of rapidly developing thunderstorms began to pop up over Central and Southwest Lower Michigan by the early evening hours of August 24th, with the exceptional moisture and instability in place over southern Lower Michigan. The storms quickly grew upscale and became severe, leading to a west-east line of severe thunderstorms which dropped south through southeast Michigan during the evening hours.||Strong winds in the mid levels allowed for damaging winds to be the primary hazard, with areas of southeast Michigan seeing 60-80 MPH wind gusts which lead to extensive tree damage and power outages, along with some structural damage to homes. At the peak, close to 500,000 customers lost power in southern lower Michigan. A surface low tracking through southern Lower Michigan was able to help spawn tornadoes, with an EF-2 developing over northeast Ingham. This tornado weakened and tracked into Livingston county near Fowlerville before dissipating. This 12 mile track tornado was by far the strongest and longest duration one of the day, and also resulted in 1 fatality as cars were flipped on I-69 in Ingham county. Short lived-weak QLCS tornadoes spun up over Wayne and northeast Monroe counties as the intense thunderstorm complex exited the state around Midnight. Winds with these tornadoes reached 80-105 mph, but even a few wet micro-burst/straight line winds produced wind gusts to 90 mph embedded in the line of storms.||Rainfall rates were intense (1-2��� per hr), but due to the rapid movement of the complex/storms (45-60 MPH), rainfall amounts stayed under 3 inches just about everywhere. Highest rainfall amounts of 1.5-3 inches occurred along the M-59 corridor up to I-69 corridor. Due to heavy rainfall from the previous day (1-3 inches with isolated 5-7 inch totals in Wayne/Monroe counties), even locations which received amounts under 1.5 inches experienced some flooding, mostly low lying/flood prone locations. The Lower River Rouge in Wayne county experienced major flooding and Clinton River in Macomb experienced moderate flooding.||Finally, prolific lightning was observed with the thunderstorm complex as it moved through southeast Michigan, producing thousands of cloud to ground strikes, with a good percentage of them being the stronger positive charged ones.

The tornado moved east northeast and onto I-96 where it remained for around 1.5 miles before turning southeast. The tornado crossed M-52 South of I-96 where it remained just south of I-96 until it crossed into Livingston County after Wallace Road north of Van Orden Road. The tornado briefly continued in Livingston County before lifting near Van Buren Road west of Nicholson Road. EF-2 damage occurred near and along I-96 with hundreds of trees snapped, several outbuildings heavily damaged and a few homes|having roof, siding and window damage. The tornado resulted in 2 deaths and 3 injuries of persons in vehicles on I-96. Both people killed were travelling west as the tornado was travelling east. One of the fatalities was immediate and one person succumbed to their injuries around a week later. Numerous semi trucks were blown over as the tornado crossed onto I-96. The roof of an assisted living facility in Williamston was ripped off by the tornado, where one minor injury was reported. At least 41 power poles were snapped and 400 power lines were downed.

The strong tornado over northeast Ingham county weakened and moved into Livingston county south of North Cedar Road and close to the West Branch Red Cedar River by Wallace Road. Trees and tree limbs were uprooted and blown down with estimated winds up to 90 mph as the tornado tracked east. The tornado weakened further and dissipated along Van Buren Road and west of North Nicholson Road.

The deaths

2 direct deaths are recorded for this tornado, each with what Storm Data knows of it.

From NOAA NCEI's Storm Events Database, the narrative the local forecast office wrote for Storm Data.

No tornado warning for this county appears in the archive as in force at the moment the tornado touched down. One was issued for the county at another hour that day.

The county was under a severe thunderstorm watch, issued at 22:35 UTC and running to 02:38 UTC.

Every warning and watch covering the touchdown point that day, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service products. Lead time is measured from the issue of the warning in force to the touchdown time in the database, both of which were recorded to the minute by different people.

The Storm Prediction Center had this point in a Enhanced Risk, with a 0.05 chance of a tornado within 25 miles. The outlook in force was issued at 00:59 UTC.

SPC's Day 1 convective outlook as it stood when the tornado began, read at the touchdown point. The same archive is on the radar archive.

The radiosonde launches on either side of the tornado, from the nearest station that was launching then, drawn and analyzed the way Storm Lab does: the same diagram, the same parcel and shear definitions SPC's mesoanalysis uses.

The Detroit radar (KDTX), 61 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the touchdown began at 01:28 UTC.

Open the radar archive at this moment, over the track

Reflectivity and velocity, decoded from the Level II archive in the browser. Volumes take a few seconds to open the first time.

Local storm reports within 60 km of the path, in the three hours either side.

From the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service local storm reports.

The live radar over the trackEvery 2023 tornado in MichiganEvery tornado in Michigan since 1950Warnings in force in Michigan nowThe forecast where you are

21 more were confirmed in the United States that day.

Ratings are the survey's, read off the damage rather than measured; the rating scale is above. Tornado counts rise through the record as reporting improved, so a year in the 1950s is not comparable with one today except for the strongest tornadoes, which were always noticed.

NOAA Storm Prediction Center tornado database, 1950-2025, the official record kept by NOAA's Storm Prediction Center.